Introduction

This chapter provides a comprehensive guide to SDG 11, its seven main and three supplementary targets and their respective indicators, explaining what they are intended to measure and how the indicators were derived and tested. In some cases, the targets and indicators have subsequently been refined over the early years by the UN Division of Economic and Social Affairs in the light of experience. Examples are provided of the alternatives considered for particular targets and indicators but eventually rejected – usually in relation to how widely available and easy to measure/obtain the data are – although strong political objections to particular formulations sometimes also played a role.

The first point to reiterate from Chapter 1 is that SDG 11 is not a standalone goal but was purposefully designed as one of 17 interlocking SDGs that, together, are intended to encapsulate the complexity and multifaceted nature of sustainable development and to provide the basis for stimulating action for positive change towards sustainability at national and subnational levels. Indeed, the SDGs form the monitoring and evaluation framework for the 2030 Agenda, one of the central elements of the global sustainable development agenda. Inevitably, however, national, regional and local governments, along with private firms, NGOs and other civil society bodies, are responding selectively, choosing the most important or relevant goals to the nature of their operations and needs. Some SDGs may not be relevant or impose too onerous a monitoring and evaluation burden.

Selectivity is also being exercised within individual SDGs, in terms of which targets and indicators to use on the basis of criteria including perceived importance, relevance, data availability and/or compliance and reporting burden, as well as self-interest in portraying themselves in the most positive light – the so-called “cherry-picking” referred to in Chapter 1. This can make comparative assessments across similar organizations within a sector – let alone across sectors – difficult. Selectivity also loses the opportunity to take advantage of the many interrelationships among targets and indicators of different goals in order to highlight complementary dimensions, such as those in 11 other goals that were designed to complement SDG 11. These interrelationships are examined in Chapter 3.

The publication and ratification of Agenda 2030 and the SDGs by the UN General Assembly alone could not possibly stimulate the required worldwide level of awareness, uptake and implementation of the goals.